


Freestyle

by dancinguniverse



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Swimming, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3639624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, you know. Gotta make old dad proud. Three generations of swim champs at Yale. I might not have made the grade as a competitor myself, but at least I'm keeping the tradition alive."</p><p>Dick's gaze doesn't waver. "But what do you want?"</p><p>Nix's eyes sweep back to him and away, and his mouth turns, a painful looking smile. "No pressure, but I want to win."</p><p>Dick studies him him, mouth solemn and straight, waiting until Nix actually looks him in the eye. "So do I."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freestyle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mols](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mols/gifts).



> Based on a very old prompt over on tumblr. She asked for a swim team AU and, despite knowing nothing about swimming as a sport, I agreed. It took a while, but here you go.

Dick props his elbows on the edge of the pool, setting his chin on his hands, his chest still heaving from his last lap. Behind him, the water rocks only softly, the other swimmers gone for the evening. He grins up at his coach, wiping the water from his face. "You ever actually come in here?"

Nix glances up from his phone and his clipboard. He flashes a too-quick grin, his laugh short, not quite genuine. "Nah. Figure I leave that to the real talent."

Dick's smile is softer, and he leans forward persistently. "Come on, Lew. Practice is done. It's muggy as anything up there. The water'll do you good."

Nix stands, though his upright slouch is almost as impressive as his sprawl on the bleachers. "Not all of us are half fish. Come on, hit the showers, we'll talk after." He retreats to the doorway before Dick can press him further, but Dick feels Nix's eyes on him the whole walk back to the locker room. 

* * *

Later, Dick is tearing through a chicken sandwich. An empty salad plate, soup bowl, and the crumbs of some mozzerella sticks are scattered in front of him. Across the table, Nix sips on a beer and steals the occasional french fry. "You know how to swim, right?" Dick checks. He has to speak over the roar of three different baseball games vying for attention from the large screens hanging over the bar, and the raucous laughter and occasional shrieks from the ping-pong table's crowd, unusually large tonight for some reason. 

Nix gives him an unimpressed look, appearing perfectly at home in the slightly dim light of the campus bar. He should; he's all of two years older than Dick, and the crowd is about twenty percent adjunct professors anyway. Not to mention that, to Dick's occasional concern, Nix always seems more at ease with a glass or bottle in his hand. "You think I got a coaching job with a smart mouth and a pretty face?"

Dick shrugs, eyebrows raised innocently.

Nix swipes another fry, dragging it through Dick's ketchup. "I can swim, smart-ass. I choose not to, these days."

Dick drinks half his milkshake in one long swallow. "Why coach? You don't seem to like it that much." There's no judgment in his tone, only curiosity. Nix seems to like the team well enough, and can usually find a smile even for the guys' wilder antics. But he's late to half their practices, seems to rely on the captains and older swimmers more than he ought, and it's not hard to see that his heart isn't in it. Then again, Dick isn't sure where his passion does lie, except in the flask forming an eternal, worrying line in his pocket, and in the hungry looks he casts Dick's way when he doesn't think anyone is looking. 

Nix twists the bottle in his hands, looking around the restaurant, away from Dick's gaze. Dick can tell the careless tone in his answer costs him quite a bit. "Oh, you know. Gotta make old dad proud. Three generations of swim champs at Yale. I might not have made the grade as a competitor myself, but at least I'm keeping the tradition alive."

Dick's gaze doesn't waver. "But what do  _you_ want?"

Nix's eyes sweep back to him and away, and his mouth turns, a painful looking smile. "No pressure, but I want to win."

Dick studies him him, mouth solemn and straight, waiting until Nix actually looks him in the eye. "So do I."

The waiter tries to drop off their bill, and Nix hands him a credit card before Dick can even pull out his wallet. "You didn't even eat anything," Dick complains, and Nix's smile eases and turns genuine, fond.

"Call it an investment," he advises, and ducks his head when Dick smiles back at him. "Anyway. You should get home. Isn't it a schoolnight?"

Dick rolls his eyes. "My earliest class is at two tomorrow. Which I'm pretty sure you know. Come on, I'll walk you back to your car."

Nix sighs heavily, draining his beer and making a face. "I don't know why I do this. I'm a graduate, for Christ's sake."

"Drinking?" Dick asks, slipping on his jacket.

"Drinking in the student union."

"I've never advised it myself," Dick answers mildly, and nudges Nix along with his shoulder.

They chat easily on the walk back to the RAC's parking deck, the April air warm and gentle, and Dick makes Nix laugh loudly when he recounts Harry's attempt and complete failure to charm his way out of walking into his math exam five minutes before the end of the class. Harry would be okay. Somehow, he always was, and senior spring had made them all invincible. 

They reach the muscled black Mustang Nix drives around, but Nix leaves his keys in his pocket and leans against the door instead, stalling. "Sink wanted you," he says abruptly. "Would have taken you to nationals. Why'd you turn him down?"

Dick blinks at him, not quite expressionless, but still impossible to read. The offer was an old one, and Dick hasn't thought about it in a while. "I wanted to stay with the team."

"It's not a team sport," Nix points out. "Not the way you swim, anyway."

Dick shrugs at him, arms hanging loosely by his sides, unoccupied and unconcerned. Dick likes swimming, loves the first shock of immersion, and the lingering smell of chlorine on his skin when he walks to breakfast before the sun has finished rising. He likes the way it feels to push himself, whittling down his own time, and — he's not ashamed to admit it — he loves the feeling of breaking the water at the end of a heat and seeing his own name, first on the list. But more than that, he likes his team, stumbled into that through blind luck. Even if he tends toward observing, he wouldn't trade the inevitable hotel room parties on the road for a meet, the bus rides full of loud jokes and arguments over music choices, the sleepy jostle of post-practice breakfast in the eastern nook of the cafeteria, for anything. And that includes, more and more, the acerbic humor and tousled hair that greet him at the end of every practice, the way long after the guys have disappeared into their rooms after meets for celebratory or consolation drinks that Dick and Nix pretend to know nothing about, the two of them can be found talking about nothing and everything, until the hotel finally asks them to retreat to their rooms. "I'm happy where I am," he says simply.

Nix is shadowed in the dark, the glow of the parking lot lights dim here in the corner where Nix always leaves his baby, far from careless park jobs and hastily flung doors. The effect makes his eyes look darker than ever, bruised, and the effect seems compounded with Dick's words.

Dick steps in closer and Nix watches him, eyes soft and wide, but at the last moment he twists away, putting his hands to Dick's chest to stop him.

"Dick," he says, regret heavy in his voice. "I'm your coach, we can't—"

"For one more month," Dick points out, amused. "And I'm not even continuing with swim. I've got a job lined up with an accounting firm, Lew. What possible difference would it make?"

Nix grimaces. "Then how about the fact that you're graduating in a month, okay? You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't start this now."

Dick ducks his head, trying to get Nix to meet his eyes. "It started your very first day. And I am thinking about what's next. But I can wait a month." He backs away. 

Nix jingles his keys nervously for a minute, and finally opens his door and slips inside. "Have a good night, Dick," he says shortly, and pulls the door shut on his own words. 

Dick watches him drive away, the rumble of the engine audible even after his taillights disappear around the curve of the road. 

* * *

Dick breaks through the water and sees a familiar form crouching at the edge of the pool. He'd thought he was alone, and the surprise means Nix's words don't penetrate immediately. "I guess congratulations are in order."

The pool is abandoned today, most of the students already on their way home for the summer or forever. Outside, the chairs that coated the campus' main lawn have all been packed away, though the tents from the graduation parties remain. Inside the pool, their words echo in the empty space, and sunlight streams down over everything, unfamiliar and uncomfortably bright after months of early morning swims under the hum of fluorescent lights. Dick treads water, approaching the edge slowly. "I looked for you after the ceremony. My parents wanted to take you to dinner."

This seems to amuse Nix, who shakes his head. "That isn't necessary."

It's Dick who actually laughs. "It's not necessary. It's supposed to be nice. You'd like my mom. Everybody likes my mom."

Nix smiles down at him, fond and a little sad. "I'm sure I would," he admits, and then looks away, shoulders slumping even more than normal. "Listen, I don't want you to—"

"Are you coming in?" Dick interrupts, and Nix frowns at him. 

"Do I look like I'm wearing a suit? Come on out, I want to talk to you for a minute. I think we should—"

"Hand me a towel, would you?" Dick breaks in again, and Nix shakes his head but rises to fetch one from the stack.

"Are you listening to me? This is important, Dick," Nix complains, and leans down to hand the towel over.

Dick surges out of the water, grabbing Nix by both forearms and throwing himself backwards into the water, tumbling Nix in with him. Nix comes up spitting water and cursing, flailing and slapping water toward Dick's grinning face. "What the fuck—" he shuts up quickly when Dick pushes him up against the wall of the pool, hooking his elbows over the edge and boxing Nix in, their bodies pressed close.

"Lew?" he asks, and Nix's eyes are round with surprise, water running in rivulets down his face from his soaked hair. "Be quiet." And Dick kisses him, soft but thorough, until Nix is clutching at him, struggling for purchase in the deep water.


End file.
